conformity: Asch’s research

Question 1

aim of Asch’s study

Answer 1

to investigate conformity and how it is affected by different factors

Question 2

how many participants were in Asch’s study and where were they from?

Answer 2

123 American male students

Question 3

how many trials were there and how many were ‘critical’

Answer 3

18 trials and 12 of them were ‘critical trials’

Question 4

what was the procedure of Asch’s study?

Answer 4

•he showed the participants a ‘standard line’ on one card and on another card there were 3 ‘comparison lines’. one of the three lines were the same length as the standard line and the other two were substantially different. the participant was asked which one matched the standard
•the study was comprised of 123 American male students, each of these naive participants were tested individually with a group of 6-8 confederates
•on the first few trials all the confederates have the right answers, but then they started making errors. all the confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer
•a trial was one occasion identifying the length of a standard line

Question 5

how many times did the naive participant give the wrong answer?

Answer 5

36.8% of the time

Question 6

how many participants conformed at least once?

Answer 6

25% of the participants didn’t conform once, meaning 75% of participants confirmed at least once

Question 7

when the participants were interviews afterwards why did most of them say they conformed?

Answer 7

that they conformed to avoid rejection from the group (normative social influence)

Question 8

what were the three variations Asch applied?

Answer 8

•group size
•unanimity
•task difficulty

Question 9

What did Asch find from changing the group size?

Answer 9

Asch increased the size of the group my adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority. Asch found that with 3 confederates conformity rose to 31.8%. but the addition of further confederates made little difference. Increasing the group size had a very small impact on the conformity levels, as they levelled off when they majority was greater than 3 (anonymity)

Question 10

What did Asch find from altering unanimity?

Answer 10

This refers to the extent to which all the members of a group agree. Asch also wanted to know if the presence of another, non conforming, person would affect the likelihood of the naive participant conforming. to test this he introduced a dissenting confederate who disagreed with the others- sometimes giving the right answer and sometimes giving the wrong one.
The presence of this confederate (regardless of the right or wrong answer given) led to reduced conformity. The figure, on average, was 25% conformity.

Question 11

What did Asch find when altering task difficulty?

Answer 11

Asch made the line-judging task more difficult by making the standard line and the comparison lines more similar in length. He found that conformity increased under these conditions. at his suggests that informational social influence played a greater role when the test becomes harder. this is because the situation is more ambiguous, so we are more likely to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right and we are wrong.

Question 12

Asch evaluation points

Answer 12

limitation: product of its time
limitation: artificial research and task
limitation: limited application of findings
limitation: findings may only be applicable to certain situations
limitation: ethical issues

Question 13

limitation: a product of its time

Answer 13

•Perrin and Spencer (1980) repeated the study was engineering students in the UK and found that only 1 student confirmed in a total of 396 trials
•It is possible that in the 1950s (when Asch’s study was conducted) it was an especially conformist time in America, and therefore it made sense to conform to established social norms- people may be less likely to conform in todays society
•This means that the Asch effect is not consistent across situations and may not be consistent across time, and so is not a fundamental feature of human behaviour

Question 14

limitation: artificial research and task

Answer 14

•participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone alone with the demands of the situation (demand characteristics) there was also no consequences to confirming and no reason not to
•the groups the naive participants were members of did not resemble those in everyday life. this is especially true where the consequences of conformity might be more important, and we interact with other people in groups in a much more direct way

Question 15

who conducted a study with the engendering students?

Answer 15

Perrin and Spencer

Question 16

what was the findings of Perrin and Spencer’s study

Answer 16

with the engineering students, only 1 student conformed in a total of 396 trials

Question 17

when was Asch’s study conducted?

Answer 17

1950s

Question 18

limitation: limited application of findings

Answer 18

•only men were tested, and research (Neto 1995) suggests that women may be more conformist as they are more concerned about social relationships and being accepted.
•the study was conducted in the USA (an individualist culture). Studies conducted in China have found that the conformity rates are often higher due to the collectivist culture
•Asch’s findings may only apply to American men because he didn’t take into account gender and cultural differences

Question 19

who suggested that women may be more likely to conform than men?

Answer 19

Neto 1995

Question 20

limitations: findings may only apply to certain situations + ethical issues

Answer 20

•participants had to answer out loud infront of a group of strangers, Williams and Sogon foinf conformity was higher when the majority were friends rather than strangers (values their opinions more, wanted to be accepted in the group)
•there are concerns surrounding deception of participants and lack of informed consent